


Aliens

by TheEquestrianidiot



Series: Alien Falls [1]
Category: Aliens (1986), Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2570162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEquestrianidiot/pseuds/TheEquestrianidiot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What dreams can save the haunted? What actions in the present can fix the past? Mabel Pines, last survivor of the Nostromo learns the hard way that the past will come looking for you, no matter how far you drift in space. Her only option? Take the nightmare head on. This time, it's war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

* * *

In the infinity that is space, suns are but grains of sand. A white dwarf is barely worthy of notice. A small spacecraft like the lifeboat of the vanished vessel _Nostromo_ is almost too tiny to exist in such emptiness. It drifted through the great nothing like a freed electron broken loose from its atomic orbit.

Yet even a freed electron can attract attention, if others equipped with appropriate detection instruments happen to chance across it. So it was that the lifeboat's course took it close by a familiar star. Even so, it was a stroke of luck that it was not permanently overlooked. It passed very near another ship; in space, 'very near' being anything less than a light-year. It appeared on the fringe of a range spanner's screen.

Some who saw the blip argued for ignoring it. It was too small to be a ship, the crew insisted. It didn't belong where it was and ships talked back. This one was as quiet as the dead. More likely it was only an errant asteroid, a renegade chunk of nickel-iron off to see the universe. If it was a ship, at the very least it would have been blaring to anything within hearing range with an emergency beacon.

But the captain of the ranging vessel was a curious fellow. A minor deviation in their course would give them a chance to check out the silent wanderer, and a little clever bookkeeping would be sufficient to justify the detour's cost to the owners. Orders were given, and computers worked to adjust trajectory. The captain's judgment was confirmed when they drew alongside the stranger: it was a ship's lifeboat.

Still no sign of life, no response to polite inquiries. Even the running lights were out. But the ship was not completely dead. Like a body in frigid weather, the craft had withdrawn power from its extremities to protect something vital deep within.

The captain selected three men to board the drifter. Gently as an eagle mating with a lost feather, the larger craft sidled close to the _Narcissus_. Metal kissed metal. Grapples were applied. The sounds of the locking procedure echoed through both vessels.

Wearing full pressure suits, the three boarders entered their airlock. They carried portable lights and other equipment. Air being too precious to abandon to the vacuum of space, they waited patiently while the oxygen was inhaled by their ship. Then the outer-lock door slid aside.

Their first sight of the lifeboat was disappointing: no internal lights visible through the port in the door, no sign of life within. The door refused to respond when the external controls were pressed. It had been jammed shut from inside. After the men made sure there was no air in the lifeboat's cabin, a robot welder was put to work on the door. Twin torches flared brightly in the darkness, slicing into the door from two sides. The flames met at the bottom of the barrier Two men braced the third, who kicked the metal aside. The way was open. Time to grab the spoils.

The lifeboat's interior was as dark and still as a tomb. A section of portable grappling cable snaked along the floor. Its torn and frayed tip ended near the exterior door. Up close to the cockpit a faint light was visible. The men moved toward it.

The familiar dome of a hypersleep capsule glowed from within. The intruders exchanged a glance before approaching. Two of them leaned over the thick glass cover of the transparent sarcophagus. Behind them, their companion was studying his instrumentation and muttered aloud.

"Internal pressure positive. Assuming nominal hull and systems integrity. Nothing appears busted; just shut down to conserve energy. Capsule pressure steady. There's power feeding through, though I bet the batteries have about had it Look how dim the internal readouts are. Ever see a hypersleep capsule like this one?"

"Late twenties." The speaker leaned over the glass and murmured into his suit pickup. "Good-lookin' dame to boot."

"Good-lookin', my ass," His companion sounded disappointed. "Life function diodes are all green. That means she's alive. There goes our salvage profit, guys."

The other inspector gestured in surprise. "Hey, there's something in there with her. Nonhuman. Looks like it's alive too. Can't see too clearly. Part of it's under her hair. It's pinkish."

"Pink?" The leader of the trio pushed past both of them and rested the faceplate of his helmet against the transparent barrier. "Got a weird lookin' tail, whatever it is."

"Hey." One of the men nudged his companion. "Maybe it's an alien life-form, huh? That'd be worth some bucks."

Mabel Pines chose that moment to move ever so slightly, stirring within the confines of deep hypersleep. A few strands of hair drifted down the pillow beneath her head, more fully revealing the creature that slept tight against her. The leader of the boarders straightened and shook his head disgustedly.

"No such luck. It's a . . . . Pig?"

"Pig on a ship, guys. Now I've seen everything."

* * *

Listening was a struggle. Sight was out of the question. Her throat was a seam of anthracite inside the lighter pumice of her skull; black, dry, and with a faintly resinous taste. Her tongue moved loosely over territory long forgotten. She tried to remember what speech was like. Her lips parted. Air came rushing up from her lungs, and those long-dormant bellows ached with the exertion. The result of this strenuous interplay between lips, tongue, palate, and lungs was a small triumph of one word. It drifted through the room.

"Thirsty."

Something smooth and cool slid between her lips. The shock of dampness almost overwhelmed her. Memory nearly caused her to reject the water tube. In another time and place that kind of insertion was a prelude to a particularly unique and loathsome demise. Only water flowed from this tube, however It was accompanied by a calm voice intoning advice.

"Don't swallow. Sip slowly."

She obeyed, though a part of her mind screamed at her to suck the restoring liquid as fast as possible. Oddly enough, she did not feel dehydrated, only terribly thirsty.

"Good," she whispered huskily. "Got anything more substantial?"

"It's too soon," said the voice.

"The stuff it is. How about some fruit juice, or something"?

"Citric acid will tear you up." The voice hesitated considering, then said, "Try this."

Once again the gleaming metal tube slipped smoothly into her mouth. She sucked at it pleasurably. Sugared iced tea cascaded down her throat, soothing both thirst and her first cravings for food. When she'd had enough, she said so, and the tube was withdrawn. A new sound assailed her ears: the trill of some exotic bird.

She could hear and taste; now it was time to see. Her eyes opened to a view of pristine rain forest. Trees lifted bushy green crowns heavenward. Bright iridescent winged creatures buzzed as they flitted from branch to branch. Birds trailed long tail feathers like jet contrails behind them as they dipped and soared in pursuit of the insects. A quetzal peered out at her from its home in the trunk of a climbing fig.

Orchids bloomed mightily, and beetles scurried among leaves and fallen branches like ambulatory jewels. An agouti appeared, saw her, and bolted back into the undergrowth From the stately hardwood off to the left, a howler monkey dangled, crooning softly to its infant.

The sensory overload was too much. She closed her eyes against the chattering profusion of life.

Later, by perhaps another hour or an entire day, a crack appeared in the middle of the big tree's buttressing roots. The split widened to obliterate the torso of a gamboling marmoset. A woman emerged from the gap and closed it behind her, sealing the temporary bloodless wound in tree and animal. She touched a hidden wall switch, and the rain forest went away with an effortless blip sucking all the grandiose world into digital nothingness.

It was very good for a solido, but now that it had been shut off, Mabel could see the complex medical equipment the rain forest imagery had camouflaged. To her immediate left was the medved that had responded so considerately to her request for first water and then cold tea. The machine hung motionless and ready from the wall, aware of everything that was happening inside her body, ready to adjust medication provide food and drink, or summon human help should the need arise.

The newcomer smiled at the patient and used a remote control attached to her breast pocket to raise the backrest of Mabel's bed. The patch on her shirt, which identified her as a senior medical technician, was bright with color against the background of white uniform. Mabel eyed her warily, unable to tell if the woman's smile was genuine or routine. Her voice was pleasant and maternal without being cloying.

"Sedation's wearing off. I don't think you need any more. Can you understand me?" Mabel nodded. The medtech considered her patient's appearance and reached a decision. "Let's try something new. Why don't I open the window?"

"I dunno. Why don't you?"

The smile weakened at the corners, was promptly recharged Professional and practiced, then; not heartfelt. And why should it be? The medtech didn't know Mabel, and Mabel didn't know her. So what. The woman pointed her remote toward the wall across from the foot of the bed.

"Watch your eyes."

Now there's a choice non sequitur for you, Mabel thought Nevertheless, she squinted against the implied glare.

A motor hummed softly, and the motorized wall plate slid into the ceiling. Harsh light filled the room. Though filtered and softened, it was still a shock to Mabel's tired system.

"Oh yikes."

Outside the port lay a vast sweep of nothingness. Beyond the nothingness was everything. A few of Gateway Station's modular habitats formed a loop off to the left, the plastic cells strung together like children's blocks. A couple of communications antennae peeped into the view from below. Dominating the scene was the bright curve of the Earth. Africa was a brown, white-streaked smear swimming in an ocean blue, the Mediterranean a sapphire tiara crowning the Sahara.

Mabel had seen it all before, in school and then in person. She was not particularly thrilled by the view so much as she was just glad it was still there. Events of recent memory suggested it might not be, that nightmare was reality and this soft, inviting globe only mocking illusion. It was comforting, familiar, reassuring, like a worn-down teddy bear. The scene was completed by the bleak orb of the moon drifting in the background like a vagrant exclamation point: planetary system as security blanket.

"And how are we today?" She grew aware that the medtech was talking to her instead of at her.

"Bleh. Terrible." Someone or two had told her once upon a time that she had a lovely and unique voice. Eventually she should get it back. For the moment no part of her body was functioning at optimum efficiency. She wondered if it ever would again because she was very different from the person she'd been before. That Mabel had set out on a routine cargo run in a now vanished spacecraft. A different Mabel had returned, and lay in the hospital bed regarding her nurse.

"Just terrible?" You had to admire the medtech, she mused. A woman not easily discouraged. "That's better than yesterday, at least. I'd call "terrible" a quantum jump up from atrocious."

Mabel squeezed her eyelids shut, opened them slowly. The Earth was still there. Time, which heretofore she hadn't given a hoot about, suddenly acquired new importance.

"How long have I been on Gateway Station?"

"Just a couple of days." Still smiling.

"Feels so much longer."

The medtech turned her face away, and Mabel wondered whether she found the terse observation boring or disturbing "Do you feel up to a visitor?"

"I have a choice?" The idea of patient allowance seemed shocking to Mabel. She was at their mercy, and they humbly allowed her their options.

"Of course you have a choice. You're the patient. After the doctors, you know best. You want to be left alone, you get left alone."

Mabel shrugged, mildly surprised to discover that her shoulder muscles were up to the gesture. "I've been alone long enough. Ah, whattheheck. Who is it?"

The medtech walked to the door. "There are two of them actually." Mabel could see that she was smiling again.

A man entered, carrying something. Mabel knew his fat, pink, bored-looking burden.

"Waddles!" She sat up straight, not needing the bed support now. The man gratefully relinquished possession of the small pig. Mabel cuddled him to her, rejoicing in the oinks and tiny squeals the ovine replied with. "Come here, Waddles, you ugly old moose, you sweet ball of love, you!"

The man who'd brought the good pink news with him pulled a chair close to the bed and patiently waited for Mabel to take notice of him. He was in his thirties, good-looking without being flashy, and dressed in a nondescript business suit. His smile was no more or less real than the medtech's even though it had been practiced longer. Mabel eventually acknowledged his presence with a nod but continued to reserve her conversation for the pig. It occurred to her visitor that if he was going to be taken for anything more than a delivery man, it was up to him to make the first move.

"Nice room," he said without really meaning it. The visitor had slicked back bleach-white hair and a round face. He looked like a country boy, but he didn't talk like one, Mabel thought as he edged the chair a little closer to her. "I'm Gideon. Gideon Charles Gleeful. I work for the Company, but other than that, I'm really an okay guy. Glad to see you're feelin' better." The last at least sounded as though he meant it.

"Who says I'm feeling better?" She said as she stroked Waddles.

"Your doctors and machines. I'm told the weakness and disorientation should pass soon, though you don't look particularly disoriented to me. Side effects of the unusually long hypersleep, or something like that. Biology wasn't my favorite subject, you see. I was better at figures. For example, yours seems to have come through in pretty good shape." He nodded toward the bed covers.

"I hope I look better than I feel, because I feel like the inside of an Egyptian mummy. Hey, You said "unusually long hypersleep"- How long was I out there?" She gestured toward the watching medtech. "They won't tell me anything."

Gideon's tone was soothing, paternal. "Well, maybe you shouldn't worry about that just yet."

Mabel's hand shot from beneath the covers to grab his arm. The speed of her reaction and the strength of her grip clearly surprised him. "No. I'm conscious, and I don't need any more coddling. How long?"

He glanced over at the medtech. She shrugged and turned away to attend to the needs of some incomprehensible tangle of lights and tubes. When he looked back at the woman lying in the bed, he found he was unable to shift his eyes away from hers.

"All right. It's not my job to tell you, but my instincts say you're strong enough to handle it. Fifty-seven years."

The number hit her like a hammer. Fifty-seven too many hammers. Hit her harder than waking up, harder than her first sight of the home world. She seemed to deflate, to lose strength and color simultaneously as she sank back into the mattress Suddenly the artificial gravity of the station seemed thrice Earth-normal, pressing her down and back. The air-filled pad on which she rested was ballooning around her, threatening to stifle and smother. The medtech glanced at her warning lights but all of them stayed silent.

Fifty-seven years. In the more than half century she'd been dreaming in deepsleep, friends left behind had grown old and died, family had matured and faded, the world she'd left behind had metamorphosed into who knew what. Governments had risen and fallen; inventions had hit the market and been outmoded and discarded. No one had ever survived more than sixty-five years in hypersleep. Longer than that and the body begins to fail beyond the ability of the capsules to sustain life She'd barely survived; she'd pushed the limits of the physiologically possible, only to find that she'd outlived life.

"Fifty-seven!" Mabel clutched the sheets, a tightness in her chest as she let the passage of time sink into her mind.

"You drifted right through the core systems," Gideon was telling her. "Your beacon failed. It was blind luck that that deep salvage team caught you when they . . ." he hesitated. She'd suddenly turned pale, her eyes widening. "Are you all right?"

She coughed once, a second time harder. There was a pressure. Her expression changed from one of concern to dawning horror. Waddles squealed loudly and leapt away. Gideon tried to hand her a glass of water from the nightstand, only to have her slap it away. It struck the floor and shattered. Mabel grabbed at her chest, her back arching as the convulsions began. She looked as if she were strangling.

The medtech was shouting at the omnidirectional pickup "Code Blue to Four Fifteen! Code Blue, Four One Five!"

She and Gideon clutched Mabel's shoulders as the patient began bouncing against the mattress. They held on as a doctor and two more techs came pounding into the room.

_It couldn't be happening. It couldn't!_

"Nonoooooo!"

The techs were trying to slap restraints on her arms and legs as she thrashed wildly. Covers went flying. One foot sent a medtech sprawling while the other smashed a hole in the soulless glass eye on a monitoring unit.

"Hold her," the doctor was yelling. "Get me an airway, stat!"

An explosion of blood suddenly stained the top sheet crimson, and the linens began to pyramid as something unseen rose beneath them. Stunned, the doctor and the techs backed off. The sheet continued to rise.

Mabel saw clearly as the sheet slid away. The medtech fainted. The doctor made gagging sounds as the eyeless toothed worm emerged from the patient's shattered rib cage. It turned slowly until its fanged mouth was only a foot from its host's face, and screeched. The sound drowned out everything human in the room, filling Mabel's ears, overloading her numbed cortex, echoing, reverberating through her entire being as she . . .

. . . sat up screaming, her body snapping into an upright position in the bed. She was alone in the darkened hospital room. Colored light shone from the insect-like dots of glowing LEDs. Clutching pathetically at her chest she fought to regain the breath the nightmare had stolen.

Her body was intact: sternum, muscles, tendons, and ligaments all in place and functional. There was no demented horror ripping itself out of her torso, no obscene birth in progress. Her eyes moved jerkily in their sockets as she scanned the room. Nothing lying in ambush on the floor nothing hiding behind the cabinets waiting for her to let down her guard. Only silent machines monitoring her life and the comfortable bed maintaining it. The sweat was pouring off her even though the room was pleasantly cool. She held one fist protectively against her sternum, as if to reassure herself constantly of its continued inviolability.

She jumped slightly as the video monitor suspended over the bed came to life. An older woman gazed anxiously down at her Night-duty medtech. Her face was full of honest, not merely professional, concern.

"Bad dreams again? Do you want something to help you sleep?" A robot arm whirred to life left of Mabel's arm. She regarded it with distaste.

"No. I've slept enough."

"Okay. You know best. If you change your mind, just use your bed buzzer." She switched off. The screen darkened.

Mabel slowly leaned back against the raised upper section of mattress and touched one of the numerous buttons set in the side of her nightstand. Once more the window screen that covered the far wall slid into the ceiling. She could see out again. There was the portion of Gateway, now brilliantly lit by nighttime lights and, beyond it, the night-shrouded globe of the Earth. Wisps of cloud masked distant pinpoints of light, cities alive with happy people blissfully ignorant of the stark reality that was an indifferent, cold cosmos.

Something landed on the bed next to her, but this time she didn't jump. It was a familiar, demanding shape, and she hugged it tightly to her, ignoring the casual squeak of protest.

"It's okay, Waddles. We made it, we're safe. I'm sorry I scared you buddy. It'll be all right now, okay? It's going to be all right."

All right, yes, save that she was going to have to learn how to sleep all over again.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

Sunlight streamed through the stand of poplars. A meadow was visible beyond the trees, green stalks splattered with the brightness of bluebells, daisies, and phlox. A robin pranced near the base of one tree, searching for insects. Glass doors sealed the atrium off from the rest of Gateway Station. The expensive solido of a North American temperate forest was set off by potted plants and sickly grass underfoot The solido looked more real than the real plants, but at least the latter had an honest smell. Mabel leaned slightly toward one pot. Dirt and moisture and growing things. Of cabbages and kings, she mused dourly. Horsepucky. She wanted off Gateway. Earth was temptingly near, and she longed to put blue sky between herself and the malign emptiness of space. There was a comfort to be found on the knowledge that her feet could meet earth, and not her honest imposter.

Two of the glass doors that sealed off the atrium parted to admit Gideon Gleeful. For a moment she found herself regarding him as a man and not just a company cipher. Maybe that was a sign that she was returning to normal. Her appraisal of him was mitigated by the knowledge that when the Nostromo had departed on its ill-fated voyage, he was two decades short of being born. It shouldn't have made any difference. They were approximately the same physical age, albeit he being man of smaller stature.

"Sorry." Always the cheery smile. "I've been running behind all morning. Finally managed to get away."

Mabel cut him off. "Have they located my brother yet?"

Gideon looked uncomfortable. "Well, I was going to wait until after the inquest."

"You know, I've waited fifty-seven years and I think I've discovered I've become somewhat impatient. So humour me, please."

He nodded, set down his carrying case, and popped the lid He fumbled a minute with the contents before producing several sheets of thin plastic.

"Is he . . . ?"

Gideon spoke as he read from one of the sheets. "Dipper Pines. Unmarried. Age 41 at . . time of his disappearance. That was 42 years ago. There's a whole history here. Nothing spectacular or notable. Details of a pleasant ordinary life. Like the kind most of us lead, I expect. I'm sorry." He passed over the sheets, studied Mabel's face as she scanned the printouts. "Guess this is my morning for being sorry."

Mabel studied the holographic image imprinted on one of the sheets. It showed an older, slightly pale man in his early forties'. Could have been anyone's uncle. There was nothing distinctive about the face, nothing that leapt out and shouted with familiarity. It was impossible to reconcile the picture of this older man with the memory of the brother she'd left behind.

"Dipper," she whispered.

Gideon still held a couple of sheets, read quietly as she continued to stare at the hologram. "They say he just up and vanished. Hmmm. They still haven't licked all varieties of that one. No one just up an' vanishes near a meteor."

Mabel looked past him, toward the forest solido but not at it She was staring at the invisible landscape of the past.

"I promised him I'd be home for his birthday. His twenty-seventh birthday. I sure missed that one." She glanced again at the picture.

Gideon nodded, trying to be sympathetic. That was difficult for him under ordinary circumstances, much more so this morning. At least he had the sense to keep his mouth shut instead of muttering the usual polite inanities.

"You always think you can make it up to somebody later you know." She took a deep breath. "But now I never can. I never can. Oh, Dip." The tears came then, long overdue. Fifty-seven years overdue. She sat there on the bench and sobbed softly to herself, alone now in a different kind of space.

Finally Gideon patted her reassuringly on her shoulder, uncomfortable at the display and trying hard not to show it. "The hearing convenes at oh-nine-thirty. You don't want to be late. It wouldn't make a good first impression."

She nodded, rose. "Waddles. Waddles, c'mere." Oinking, the pig sauntered over and allowed her to pick him up. She wiped self-consciously at her eyes. "I've got to change. Won't take long." She rubbed her nose against the pig's back, Waddles closed his eyes and nuzzled his master.

"Would you like me to walk you back to your room?"

"Sure, why not?"

He turned and started for the proper corridor. The doors parted to permit them egress from the atrium. "Ya know, that pig's something of a special privilege. They don't allow pets on Gateway."

"Waddles isn't a pet." She scratched the torn behind the ears. "He's a survivor. Aren't you, tough guy?" Mabel lifted the small ovine to her face, a pleasant oink paying her efforts.

As Mabel promised, she was ready in plenty of time. Gideon elected to wait outside her private room, studying his own reports, until she emerged. The transformation was impressive. Gone was the pale, waxy skin; gone the bitterness of expression and the uncertain stride. Determination? he wondered as they headed for the central corridor. Or just clever makeup?

Neither of them said anything until they neared the sub-leve where the hearing room was located. "What are you going to tell them?" Gideon finally asked her.

"I don't get ya. What else do I need to say? You read my deposition; It's complete and accurate. I don't need to lie, you know."

"Look, I believe you, but there are going to be some heavyweights in there, and every one of them is going to try to pick holes in your story. You got feds, you got Interstellar Commerce Commission, you got Colonial Administration insurance company guys. . ."

"Okay! Okay! I think I get the picture. Lotta peoples are gunning for me."

"Look, just tell them what happened. The important thing is to stay cool and unemotional."

Sure, she thought. All of her friends and shipmates were dead, her brothers been missing for forty-two years and she'd lost fifty-seven years of reality to an un-restoring sleep. Cool and unemotional. Sure. Not a problem, Mabes.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mabel Pines was usually a very easy going, very happy person. Yet, despite her determination, by midday she was anything but easy going and happy. Repetition of the same questions, the same idiotic disputations of the facts as she'd reported them, the same exhaustive examination of minor points that left the major ones untouched, all combined to render her frustrated and angry.

As she spoke to the somber inquisitors the large videoscreen behind her was printing out mug shots and dossiers. She was glad it was behind her, because the faces were those of the Nostromo's crew. There was Grenda, grinning like a goon. And Candy, placid and bored as the camera did its duty. Crazy old McGuckett was there, too, and Melody. Soos the traitor, his soulless face enriched with programmed false piety. Stan . . .

Stan. Better the picture behind her, like the memories, and so she turned.

"I'm sorry, but are there sprinkles in your ears, or what?' she finally snapped. "We've been here three hours. How many different, zany ways do you want me to tell the same story? You think it'll sound better in Swahili, get me a translator and we'll do it in Swahili. I'd try Japanese, but I'm out of practice. Actually, I can't remember when I last spoke Japanese. Ugh, that and I'm also out of patience. How long does it take you to make up your minds?"

Blendin Blandin steepled his fingers and frowned. His expression was as gray as his suit. It was approximated by the looks on the faces of his fellow board members. There were eight of them on the official board of inquiry, and not a friendly one in the lot. Executives. Administrators. Adjusters. How could she convince them? They weren't human beings They were expressions of bureaucratic disapproval. Phantoms. She was used to dealing with reality. The intricacies of politicorporate maneuvering were beyond her.

"Look, this isn't as simple as you seem to believe," he told her quietly. "Look at it from our perspective. You freely admit to detonating the engines of, and thereby destroying, an M-Class interstellar freighter. A rather expensive piece of hardware."

The insurance investigator was possibly the unhappiest member of the board. "Forty-two million in adjusted dollars That's minus payload, of course. Engine detonation wouldn't leave anything salvageable, even if we could locate the remains after fifty-seven years."

Blandin nodded absently before continuing. "It's not as if we think you're lying. The lifeboat shuttle's flight recorder corroborates some elements of your account. The least controversial ones. That the Nostromo set down on LV-426, an unsurveyed and previously unvisited planet, at the time and date specified. That repairs were made. That it resumed its course after a brief layover and was subsequently set for self-destruct and that this, in fact, occurred. That the order for engine overload was provided by you. For reasons unknown."

"Look, I told you-" Mabel gave a weak, forced smile.

Blandin interrupted, having heard it before. "It did not however, contain any entries concerning the hostile alien life-form you allegedly picked up during your short stay on the planet's surface."

"We didn't "pick it up"," she shot back, the smile vacating her face. "Like I told you, it-"

She broke off, staring at the hollow faces gazing stonily back at her. She was wasting her breath. This wasn't a real board of inquiry. This was a formal wake, a post-interment party. The object here wasn't to ascertain the truth in hopes of vindication it was to smooth out the rough spots and make the landscape all nice and neat again. And there wasn't a thing she could do about it, she saw now. Her fate had been decided before she'd set foot in the room. The inquiry was a show, the questions a sham. To satisfy the record.

"Then somebody's gotten to it and doctored the recorder. A competent tech could do that in an hour. Who had access to it?" Mabel demanded, daring those around her to match her glare.

The representative of the Extrasolar Colonization Administration was a woman on the ungenerous side of fifty. Previously she'd looked bored. Now she just sat in her chair and shook her head slowly.

"Would you just listen to yourself for one minute? Do you really expect us to believe some of the things you've been telling us? Too much hypersleep can do all kinds of funny things to the mind."

Mabel glared at her, furious at being so helpless. "You want to hear some funny things? How about this, lady: once upon a time, there was a pig princess, and that pig princess had huuuge tracks of land, and-"

Blandin stepped in verbally. "Miss Pines! That's enough! Now, listen: the analytical team that went over your shuttle centimeter by centimeter found no physical evidence of the creature you describe or anything like it. No damage to the interior of the craft. No etching of metal surfaces that might have been caused by an unknown corrosive substance."

Mabel had kept control all morning, answering the most inane queries with patience and understanding. The time for being reasonable was at an end, and so was her store of patience.

"That's because I blew it out the airlock!" She subsided a little as this declaration was greeted by the silence of the tomb, the energy of her outburst vibrating through the particles of air like a spell. "Like I said!"

The insurance man leaned forward and peered along the desk at the EGA representative. "Are there any species like this "hostile organism" native to LV-426?"

"No." The woman exuded confidence. "It's a rock. No indigenous life bigger than a simple virus. Certainly nothing complex. Not even a flatworm. Never was, never will be."

Mabel ground her teeth as she struggled to stay calm. "I told you, it wasn't indigenous!" She tried to meet their eyes, but they were having none of it, so she concentrated on Blandin and the ECA rep. "There was a signal coming from the surface The Nostromo's scanner picked it up and woke us from hypersleep, as per standard regulations. When we traced it, we found an alien spacecraft like nothing you or anyone else has ever seen. That was on the recorder too."

She continued, "The ship was a derelict. Crashed, abandoned . . . we never really did find out. We homed in on its beacon. We found the ship's pilot, also like nothing previously encountered. He was dead in his chair with a hole in his chest the size of a, well, a freakin' welder's tank."

Maybe the story bothered the ECA rep. Or maybe she was just tired of hearing it for the umpteenth time. Whatever, she felt it was her place to respond.

"To be perfectly frank, we've surveyed over three hundred worlds, and no one's ever reported the existence of a creature which, using your words, and", she bent to read from her copy of Ripley's formal statement " "gestates in a living human host" and has "concentrated molecular acid for blood"."

Mabel glanced toward Gideon, who sat silent and tight-lipped at the far end of the table. He was not a member of the board of inquiry, so he had kept silent throughout the questioning. Not that he could do anything to help her. Everything depended on how her official version of the Nostromo's demise was received. Without the corroborating evidence from the shuttle's flight recorder the board had nothing to go on but her word, and it had been made clear from the start how little weight they'd decided to allot to that. She wondered anew who had doctored the recorder and why. Or maybe it simply had malfunctioned on its own. At this point it didn't much matter. She was tired of playing the game.

"Look, I can see where this is going." She half smiled, an expression devoid of amusement. This was hardball time, and she was going to finish it out even though she had no chance of winning. "The whole business with the android, why we followed the beacon in the first place, it all adds up, though I can't prove it." She looked down the length of the table, and now she did grin. "Somebody's covering their Soos, and it's been decided that I'm going to take the muck for it. Okay, fine. But there's one thing you can't change, one fact you can't doctor away."

"Those things exist. You can wipe me out, but you can't wipe that out. Back on that planet is an alien ship, and on that ship are thousands of eggs. Thousands. Do you understand? Do you have any idea what that means? You need to go back there with an expedition and find it, using the flight recorder's data and find it fast. Find it and deal with it, preferably with an orbital nuke, before one of your survey teams comes back with a little surprise."

"Thank you, Officer Pines,' Blandin began, 'that will be-"

"Because just one of those things," she went on, stepping on him, "managed to kill my entire crew within half a day of hatching."

The administrator rose. Mabel wasn't the only one in the room who was out of patience. "Thank you. That will be all."

"No! That's not all!' She stood and glared at him. "If those things get back here, that will be all. Then you can just kiss it goodbye! Adios! Don't let the door slam your butt on the way out!"

The ECA representative turned calmly to the administrator. "I believe we have enough information on which to base a determination. I think it's time to close this inquest and retire for deliberation."

Blandin glanced at his fellow board members. He might as well have been looking at mirror images of himself, for al the superficial differences of face and build. They were of one mind.

That was something that could not be openly expressed however. It would not look good in the record. Above all everything had to look good in the record.

"Gentlemen, ladies?" Acquiescent nods. He looked back down at the subject under discussion. Dissection was more like it, she thought sourly. "Officer Pines, if you'd excuse us, please?"

"Not likely." Trembling with frustration, she turned to leave the room. As she did so, her eyes fastened on the picture of Stan that was staring blankly back down from the videoscreen. Captain Stanford Pines. Friend Stan. Companion Stan. Grunkle Stan.

Dead Stan. She strode out angrily.

There was nothing more to do or say. She'd been found guilty, and now they were going to go through the motions of giving her an honest trial. Formalities. The Company and its friends loved their formalities. Nothing wrong with death and tragedy, as long as you could safely suck all the emotion out of it. Then it would be safe to put in the annual report. So the inquest had to be held, emotion translated into sanitized figures in neat columns. A verdict had to be rendered. But not too loudly, lest the neighbors overhear.

None of which really bothered Mabel. The imminent demise of her career didn't bother her. What she couldn't forgive was the blind stupidity being flaunted by the all-powerful in the room she'd left. So they didn't believe her. Given their type of mind-set and the absence of solid evidence, she could understand that. But to ignore her story totally, to refuse to check it out, that she could never forgive. Because there was a lot more at stake than one lousy life, one unspectacular career as a flight transport officer. And they didn't care. It didn't show as a profit or a loss, so they didn't care.

She booted the wall next to Gideon as he bought coffee and doughnuts from the vending machine in the hall. The machine thanked him politely as it accepted his credit card. Like practically everything else on Gateway Station, the machine had no odor. Neither did the black liquid it poured. As for the alleged doughnuts, they might once have flown over a wheat field.

"You had them eating out of your hand, Miss Pines." Gideon was trying to cheer her up. She was grateful for the attempt, even as it failed. But there was no reason to take her anger out on him. Multiple sugars and artificial creamer gave the ersatz coffee some taste.

"No I didn't. They had their minds made up before I even went in there. I've wasted an entire morning. They should've had scripts printed up for everyone to read from, including me. Would've been easier just to recite what they wanted to hear instead of trying to remember the truth." She glanced at him. "You know what they think?"

"I can imagine." He bit into a doughnut.

"They think I'm a headcase."

"You are a headcase," he told her cheerfully. "Have a doughnut. Chocolate or buttermilk?"

She eyed the precooked torus he proffered distastefully. "You can taste the difference?"

"Not really, but the colors are certainly nice."

She didn't grin, but she didn't sneer at him, either.

The "deliberations" didn't take long. No reason why they should, she thought as she reentered the room and resumed her seat. Gideon took his place on the far side of the chamber He started to wink at her, thought better of it, and aborted the gesture. She recognized the eye twitch for what it almost became and was glad he hadn't followed through.

Blandin cleared his throat. He didn't find it necessary to look to his fellow board members for support.

"It is the finding of this board of inquiry that Warrant Officer Mabel Pines, NOC-14672, has acted with questionable judgment and is therefore declared unfit to hold an ICC license as a commercial flight officer.'

If any of them expected some sort of reaction from the condemned, they were disappointed. She sat there and stared silently back at them, tight-lipped and defiant. More likely they were relieved. Emotional outbursts would have to be recorded. Blandin continued, unaware that Mabel had re-attired him in black cape and hood.

"Said license is hereby suspended indefinitely, pending review at a future date to be specified later." He cleared his throat, then his conscience. "In view of the unusual length of time spent by the defendant in hypersleep and the concomitant indeterminable effects on the human nervous system, no criminal charges will be filed at this time."

At this time, Mabel thought humorlessly. That was corporatese for 'Keep your mouth shut and stay away from the media and you'll still get to collect your pension.'

"You are released on your own recognizance for a six-month period of psychometric probation, to include monthly review by an approved ICC psychiatric tech and treatment and or medication as may be prescribed."

It was short, neat, and not at all sweet, and she took it all without a word, until Blandin had finished and departed Gideon saw the look in her eye and tried to restrain her.

"Lay off," he whispered to her. She threw off his hand and continued up the corridor. "It's over. Don't poke the big dogs."

"Right," she called back to him as she lengthened her stride. "So what else can they do to me?" Gideon could only shrug as she moved past him.

She caught up with Blandin as he stood waiting for the elevator. "Why won't you check out LV-426?"

He glanced back at her. "Miss Pines, it wouldn't matter. The decision of the board is final."

"The sugar-coated-floppy-pops with the board's decision. We're not talking about me now. We're talking about the next people that find that ship. Just tell me why you won't check it out."

"Because I don't have to," he told her brusquely. 'The people who live there checked it out years ago, and they've never reported any "hostile organism" or alien ship. You don't think I'm a complete fool, do you? Did you think the board wouldn't seek some sort of verification, if only to protect ourselves from future inquiries? And by the way, they call it Acheron now."

Fifty-seven years. Long time. People could accomplish a lot in fifty-seven years. Build, move around, establish new colonies. Mabel struggled with the import of the administrator's words.

"What are you talking about? What people?"

Blandin joined the other passengers in the elevator car. Mabel put an arm between the doors to keep them from closing. The doors' sensors obediently waited for her to remove it.

"Terraformers," Blandin explained. "Planetary engineers. Much has happened in that field while you slept, Mabel. We've made significant advances, great strides. The cosmos is not a hospitable place, but we're changing that. It's what we call a shake-'n'-bake colony. They set up atmosphere processors to make the air breathable. We can do that now, efficiently and economically, as long as we have some kind of resident atmosphere to work with. Hydrogen, argon, methane is best. Acheron is swimming in methane, with a portion of oxygen and sufficient nitrogen for beginning bonding. It's nothing now. The air's barely breathable. But given time, patience, and hard work, there'll be another habitable world out there ready to comfort and succor humanity. At a price, of course. Ours is not a philanthropic institution, though we like to think of what we do as furthering mankind's progress."

He continued, "It's a big job. Decades worth. They've already been there more than twenty years. Peacefully."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mabel inquired, the scope of her fears growing with each moment of consideration.

"Because it was felt that the information might have biased your testimony. Personally I don't think it would have made a bit of difference. You obviously believe what you believe. But some of my colleagues were of a differing opinion. I doubt it would have changed our decision."

The doors tried to close, and she slammed them apart. The other passengers began to exhibit signs of annoyance and some of worry.

"How many colonists?"

Blandin brow furrowed. "At last count I'd guess sixty maybe seventy, families. We've found that people work better when they're not separated from their loved ones. It's more expensive, but it pays for itself in the long run, and it gives the community the feeling of a real colony instead of merely an engineering outpost. It's tough on some of the women and the kids, but when their tour of duty ends, they can retire comfortably. Everyone benefits from the arrangement."

"Sweet Smile Dip," Mabel whispered.

One of the passengers leaned forward, spoke irritably. "Do you mind?"

Absently she dropped her arm to her side. Freed of their responsibility, the doors closed quietly. Blandin had already forgotten her, and she him. She was looking instead into her imagination.

Not liking what she saw there.


	3. Hadley's Hope

Some could say hell isn't a burning hole where sinners fall and meet their doom to lava and flame. Some say, like the nordic folk of old, that hell is instead a frozen waste, locked in ice and perpetual frost. Depending on your views, the former planet known as Lv-426 could easily be hell.

Years ago, it was assigned by Weyland-Yutani to be colonized and brought to standardized human requirements for living. A brave selection of families were brought forward and shipped away. With all expensive covered and a fortune waiting at the end of the business transaction, this was a lucrative deal for any terraformer.

They had a long way to go. Sure the air was breathable, but strong winds almost consistently battered the surface of Acheron. The strange landscape was of jutting rock formations, unpleasant mountain ridges, and valleys and sharpened gravel and loose rock. Much of the planet had been labeled as a boring, hostile planet that had yet to be tamed.

Somewhere near the equator of this planetoid rock, a particularly bad storm billowed over the surface. Should a person be unlucky enough to be caught outside, they might have turned and stared long enough to see the crude sign constructed by a collection of rocks. Hadley's Hope. Population one hundred a fifty eight.

As if the rocks and pebbles weren't already soaring around through the air, a deep rumble started jostling the rocks near this sign. A eight-wheeled explorer-class buggy, easily thirty feet tall, rolled past it, shining its lights ahead. Its destination? The small town of Hadley's Hope.

Lights shone past the tall walls that surrounded the newly constructed settlement. Slanted on a tall angle, the walls seldom protected the various buildings nestled behind it. The buggy honked as it approached a section of the wall. A gate began to slide open for the explorer, and the vehicle passed through without incident.

Inside the gates of Hadley's Hope, not a soul stirred outside. Many of the windows of the residential buildings were shielded with metal grates. As the buggy passed by, it nearly caught hold of loose wires, blown free from their needed posts along pipe-lines above the buildings, connection needed power to all the settlement. Unused construction equipment lay scattered and sloppily covered up with tarp. The buggy made a pass underneath the administration building, which had an overhanging section to look over the rest of the settlement, like a sentinel keep an eye on the wearing souls living here.

Through the windows, the wind barely seemed to exist. The loud bustle of activity buzzed through the room like a bee-hive. Men and women passed one another, checking in with their respective workers and overseers on their projects, checking the terminals at the sides of the room and monitors that hung from the ceiling. A platform was center stage of the large room, where the true administration walked about, talking to one another as they relayed needed chores to others. One of these men, a larger guy with a stomach to match, pushed his way though the mess, pulling a coffee and a slice of cold pizza with him. His eyes rolled when the bite he took revealed the slice to be anything but warm. A slice of pepperoni fell onto his brown beard, and he lazily lifted it back into his mouth.

"I'll be down in maintenance, okay?" the bearded man told a co-worker as he passed by, accidentally squeezing the man against his working terminal.

"Al?"

"What?" the man holding the pizza answered, not turning as he continued his way towards the hallway that lead to the elevators.

"Hey Al?"

"What?" Hal finally stopped and turned, finding the man who was speaking to him, a man named Deuce. As the man, also large, but not quite so as the man named 'Al'.

"Remember you sent some wildcatters out the middle of no where last week?" Deuce continued, following Al down the hallway, "uh, past the Eilium range?"

"Yeah?" Hal asked, finishing his slice of pizza quickly as he strode down the hall, only mostly listening to his co-worker. "What?"

"Eh, Well, one of them 's on the horn, a mom and pop survey team," Deuce told him, finally able to get along side Al as he turned down the thin hallway to the main corridor that would lead through most of the complex. "Says he's onto something," Deuce continued, "wants to know if his claim will be on it."

"Well why wouldn't his claim be on it?" Al grunted, not pleased with the topic. The smallest uncertainty by anyone these days seemed to require everyone to come running to him for a direct answer, most of the time the answer being obvious to Al.

"Well, because you sent them out to that particular 'middle of nowhere' on company orders?" Deuce suggested, as Al growled in frustration, Deuce added, "I don't know."

"Christ!" Al expelled his frustrated energy, "some haunch in a cushy officer says go look at a grid reference," Al turned to Deuce, still walking, "We look. They don't say why, and I don't ask. I don't ask," Al looked to the ceiling, as if compelling whatever forsaken angels that may reside on this planet to see pity on him, "because it takes them two weeks to get an answer out here, and the answer is always-"

"Don't ask," the two answered at the same time. Al sighed, slightly vented and appeased that Deuce could at least comprehend his standpoint.

"So what do I tell this guy?" Deuce asked. Al sighed, giving his answer a quick run through.

"Tell him that as far as I am concerned," Al told him easily, "if he finds something, then it's his," There was a clatter of activity down the hallway of a cross-section they were about to pass, and Al sighed," Deuce?"

"What?" the other man asked, and Al pointed. Children were running around the hallway, playing with toys and riding their tricycles through the still busy hall. Deuce growled, some of that energy from his boss infecting him. "You kids know you're not supposed to be on this level! Go on, get out of here!"

The kids laughed, and began to run off, some riding their bikes away as quickly as the small plastic vehicles could take them.

"Can we put a lock on the elevators yet?" Deuce asked Al, who shrugged.

"They'll just carry them up the stairs, like any other delinquent would. Just keep a guard or something here- hire one of the prospectors to stand watch when they're not grumbling around out there, would ya?" Al told him and turned away.

Al turned towards the elevator. The doors opened, allowing a collection of people to pour out before taking the metal container for himself. With a quick push of the button, he clicked the floor for maintenance. A few seconds later, he exited, striding for the air conditioning and heating conduits. Right next to the terminals, he spotted the doors that lead to cryo-labs. The door had been left open.

With his exasperated sigh blasting past his lips, he walked over, and peeked inside. The room was still the same. Part laboratory, part storage room, the room was barely ever used. Al assumed that someone had come in looking for a spare tool, probably a welder since they storms recently had tested the buildings stabilities in the past month.

He passed one cryo-tube that had not been touched since they had been here. An unmarked stasis chamber sat alone with special tinted glass. It was one of the few things that made Al uneasy. Technically, it didn't show up on the rosters for materials sent to Acheron, and even more disturbing was that it had the Weyland-Yutani symbol etched right in the middle of the glass casing. That meant unless they ever got specific orders to open or move it, nothing could be done about it. Al almost chuckled when his eyes passed over the company motto he saw every day of his life, also etched onto the stasis glass casing- Building Better Worlds.

For all Al knew, it was empty. But it had been running since it came here, and continued to function even today, the cryo-stasis stabilizer hummer gently against the wall.

"Whatever," Al mumbled as he left the room with a quick sweep with his eyes. Nothing seemed moved or messed around. He had work he needed to do.

* * *

Lightning crashed as a buggy rolled over the rough terrain of the northern passes by Hadley's Hope. It's tall lights shone around it, attempting to illuminate the surrounding bleak landscape as best it could. A futile attempt, as the winds still whipping around threw dust clouds of sand and dirt between the lights and the world around them.

Inside the buggy, two young twins argued. They called to one another, not sitting in the back passenger seats, but standing on top the seats. The young boy had just ducked away from his sister's wrath.

"You too! You go places we can't fit!" a young boy with curly brown hair and freckles told his sister, who was in appearance mostly the same. She growled and struck him with a fabric doll.

"So? That's why I'm the best!" she argued loudly trying to hit at him again.

"Knock it off! The both of you!" the mother of these two, a woman with shoulder length brown hair, turned and shouted, "if I catch either one of you back in those air ducts, I'll tan your hides. Got it?"

"But mom, Shmipper and his friends-" the young girl, Shmable started to said in complaint.

"I don't care what-" the mother started, but was also interrupted.

"Wait, wait, wait, hold on, quiet!" The father of the family shouted loudly, his eyes glued ahead of him.

"What?" the mother gasped as she pulled herself front again.

"Have a look at this!" the father said, his golden hair neatly combed on top of his face, and his well groomed moustache bouncing with his words.

The winds had died. The air was now stable and consistent. Coming over a hill, something was emerging like a ghost from the fog. Smooth, rounded, manufacture, and not on the records, something very large rested on the hills ahead of them. Curved like a massive 'U', one of the arms proudly stood up into the air, while the other had crumbled to the ground. It had an eerie quality, almost disturbing in a way that technology should not have been. The lines along the sides of the object were smooth and unnatural. It was altogether unsettling. An abnormality.

"Folks, we have scored big this time," the dad grinned as the buggy bounced and rolled towards the new destination- the discovered object.

"What is it, dad?" Shmable asked quietly, as she and her brother peered up out of the windows. They were passing along an 'arm' of the object, and they got a closer look at the strange geometry of it. Human was not the first descriptor when it came to mind.

"I'm not sure," their dad honestly said, just as struck in awe as the others. "Let's see if we can't get a closer look at this thing- maybe through that crack there on the sides," the dad told their mom.

"Shouldn't we call in?" she replied, the tiniest amount of worry in her voice.

"Let's wait to see what to call it in as," he told her, the buggy slowing down as they approached the side, where a large rupture in the object awaited them. Finally, the buggy stopped, a loud hiss on the breaks as they lurched slightly forward. "That's about as close as we can get," he looked to his wide, "should we take a look inside?"

With a moment of silent deliberation, the two nodded. The dad opened his door, and the echoes of wind poured in. The two adults dropped down from the elevated cockpit, wearing nothing for protection save for eye-glasses. Even with the storm having passed, it was still windy enough to have to shout and holler to speak to the children inside.

"You kids stay inside. I mean it!" the mother told the twins, who nodded.

"Okay," Shmipper said with a nod.

"Bye," Shmabel told her mom and dad as the twins closed the door behind them. The two kids watched as their parents stumbled through the wind and noise, climbing their way towards the side of the structure, and finally disappeared inside.

The twins sat in silence for a long time. Hours had passed as the two made idle chat, trying to ignore the sense of fear of being left alone inside a buggy in an alien world. Shmipper had been able to pass out on the front passenger seat, but Shmabel continued to peer out into the crevice she had seen her parents disappear into. How long could it be until they returned? What would they do if they didn't come back soon?

"Shmipper," Shmabel prodded her sleeping brother, who stirred quickly and blinked sleepily at her, "they've been gone a really, really long time."

"Don't worry, Shmabel," her brother told her, "it'll be okay. Dad knows what he's doing."

Bang- the door next to Shmabel was flung open, having the young girl shriek and jump away. There was her mother, her faced screwed up in fear. The wind rustled over her voice as she reached for the radio, and began to scream into it.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is alpha-kilo-two-four-niner-"

Shmabel no longer registered her mother screaming next to her. She had seen a body fall next to her mom. She had been dragging someone next to her. But she couldn't recognize who it was. The person's face was horribly different from any human she had ever seen before- slimy and bone-like. No ones, nose, mouth.

Then she realized the person was wearing her father's clothes. It was her dad. There was something wrapped tightly against his face, using a long tail to wrap tightly against his throat.

Maybe a construction worker could have heard Shmabels screams from Hadley's Hope. Probably not though.

The storm was coming back in.

* * *

 


	4. Chapter 4

It was quiet in the apartment except for the blare of the wallscreen.

Even though it was late in the day, Mabel had managed to avoid confronting a mirror. Just as well, since her haggard, unkempt appearance could only depress her further. The apartment was in better shape than she was. There were just enough decorative touches to keep it from appearing spartan. None of the touches were what another might call personal. That was understandable. She'd outlived everything that once might have been considered personal. The sink was full of dirty dishes even though the dishwasher sat empty beneath it.

She wore a bathrobe that was aging as rapidly as its owner In the adjoining bedroom, sheets and blankets lay in a heap at the base of the mattress.

"Hey, Bob!" the wallscreen bleated vapidly, "I heard that you and the family are heading off for the colonies!"

"Best decision I ever made, Phil," replied a fatuously grinning nonentity from the opposite side of the wall. "We'll be starting a new life from scratch in a clean world. No crime, no unemployment . . ."

She'd find something soon. They just wanted to keep her quiet for a while, until she calmed down. They'd be glad to help her relocate and retrain. After which they'd conveniently forget about her. Which was just dandy as far as she was concerned. She wanted no more to do with the Company than the Company wanted to do with her.

"Wetland-Yutani. Building better worlds," the Wallscreen chimed in the calmest, cheeriest way a forced pleasant commercial tone could.

If only they hadn't suspended her license, she'd long since have been out of here and away.

The door buzzed sharply for attention and she jumped. Waddles merely glanced up and grunted before trundling of toward the bathroom. He didn't like strangers. Always had been a smart pig.

Mabel didn't bother to check through the peephole. Hers was a full-security building. Not that after her recent experiences there was anything in an Earthside city that could frighten her. She stepped to the door an pulled it open.

Gideon Gleeful stood there, wearing his usual apologetic smile. Standing next to him and looking formal was a older man clad in the severe dress-black uniform of an officer in the Colonial Marines. He held his uniform wide brimmed hat within his hands, revealing a very short buzz cut. His eyes were big enough for one say they almost bugged out. Man. He had a huge nose.

"Hello, Mabel." Gideon indicated his companion. "This is Lieutenant Durland of the Co-"

The closing door cut his sentence in half briskly. Mabel turned her back on it, but she'd neglected to cut power to the hall speaker. Gideon's voice reached her via the concealed membrane.

"Mabel, we have to talk."

"Nope. We don't. So if you wouldn't mind, Gideon, get lost. Take your tough guy friend with you, too."

"No can do. This is important."

"Sure. But not to me it isn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I have my self-scheduled appointment of sitting in my apartment to accomplish. Alone."

Gideon went silent, but she sensed he hadn't left. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't give up easily. The Company rep wasn't demanding, but he was an accomplished wheedler.

As it developed, he didn't have to argue with her. All he had to do was say one sentence.

"We've lost contact with the colony of LV-426."

A sinking feeling inside as she mulled over the ramifications of that unexpected statement. Well, perhaps not entirely unexpected. She hesitated a moment longer before opening the door. It wasn't a ploy. That much was evident in Gideon's expression. Durland's gaze shifted from one to the other. He was clearly uncomfortable at being ignored, even as he tried not to show it.

She stepped aside, allowing them passage. "Come in."

Gideon surveyed the apartment and gratefully said nothing shying away from inanities like 'Nice place you have here' when it obviously wasn't. He also forbore from saying, 'You're looking well,' since that also would have constituted an obvious untruth She could respect him for his restraint. She gestured toward the table.

"Want something? Coffee, tea, spritz?"

"Coffee would be fine," he replied. Durland added a nod.

She went into the compact kitchen and dialed up a few cups. Bubbling sounds began to emanate from the processor as she turned back to the den.

"You didn't need to bring the Marines." She smiled thinly at him. "I'm past the 'violent stage'. The psych techs said so, and it's right there on my chart." She waved toward a desk piled high with discs and papers. "So what's with the escort?"

"I'm here as an official representative of the corps." Durland was clearly uneasy and more than willing to let Gideon handle the bulk of the conversation. 'How much did he know, and what had they told him about her' she wondered. Was he disappointed in not encountering some stoned harridan? Not that his opinion of her mattered; her patience for others expectations went down the drain quickly after the evaluations began.

"So you've lost contact." She feigned indifference, crossing her arms casually. "So?"

Gideon looked down at his slim-line secured briefcase. "It has to be checked out. Fast. All communications are down. They've been down too long for the interruption to be due to equipment failure. Acheron's been in business for years: they're experienced people, and they have appropriate backup systems. Maybe they're working on fixing the problem right now- but it's been no-go dead silence for too long. People are getting nervous. Somebody has to go and check it out in person. It's the only way to quiet the nervous Nellies. Probably they'll correct the trouble while the ship's on its way out and the whole trip will be a waste of time and money but it's time to set out."

He didn't have to elaborate. Mabel had already gotten where he was going and returned. She went into the kitchen and brought out the coffees. While Durland sipped his cup of brew she began pacing. The den was too small for proper pacing but she tried, anyway. Gideon just waited.

"No," she said finally. "There's no way."

"Hear me out. It's not what you think."

She stopped in the middle of the floor and stared at him in disbelief. "Not what I think? Not what I think? I don't have to think, Gideon. I was reamed, steamed, and dry-cleaned by you guys, and now you want me to go back out there? You all may think I'm wacko for saying there's something nasty out there, but now you think I need to prove to you I'm right? Heck no!"

She was trembling as she spoke. Durland misinterpreted the reaction as anger and kept his stance stiff and upright, but it was pure fear. She was scared. Gut-scared and trying to mask it with indignation. Gideon knew what she was feeling but pressed on, anyway. He had no choice.

"Look," he began in what he hoped was his best conciliatory manner, "we don't know what's going on out there. If their relay satellite's gone out instead of the ground transmitter, the only way to fix it is with a relief team. There are no spacecraft in the colony. If that's the case, then they're all sitting around out there cursing the Company for not getting off its collective butt and sending out a repair crew pronto. If it is the satellite relay, then the relief team won't even have to set foot on the planet itself. But we don't know what the trouble is, and if it's not the orbital relay, then I'd like to have you there. As an adviser. That's all."

Durland lowered his coffee. "You wouldn't be going in with the troops. Assuming we even have to go in. I can guarantee your safety."

She rolled her eyes and glanced at the ceiling. Guaranteed safety. It struck almost as funny someone could try telling her that.

"These aren't your average city cops or army accompanying us, Mabel," Gideon said forcefully. "These Colonial Marines are some tough hombres, and they'll be packing state-of-the-art firepower. Man plus machine. There's nothing they can't handle. Isn't that right, Lieutenant?"

Durland allowed himself a slight smile. "We're trained to deal with the unexpected. We've handled problems on worse worlds than Acheron. Our casualty rate for this kind of operation hovers right around zero. I reckon the percentage to improve a little more after this visit."

If this declaration was intended to impress Mabel, it failed miserably. Soldiers and guns couldn't scare away these monsters, or at least she believed it to be. She looked back to Gideon.

"What about you? What's your interest in this?"

"Well, the Company co-financed the colony in tandem with the Colonial Administration. Sort of an advance against mineral rights and a portion of the long-term developmental profits. We're diversifying, getting into a lot of terraforming Real estate on a galactic scale. Building better worlds and all that."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "I've seen the commercials."

"The corporation won't see any substantial profits out of Acheron until terraforming's complete, but a big outfit like that has to consider the long term." Seeing that this was having no effect on his host, Gideon switched to another tack. "I hear you're working in the cargo docks over Portside?"

Her reply was defensive, as was to be expected. "That's right. What about it?" Finding work had been hard, and she didn't need some pencil pusher looking down his nose at her.

He ignored the challenge. "Running loaders, forklifts suspension grates; that sort of thing?"

"It's all I could get. I'm crazy if I'm going to live on charity al my life. Anyway, it keeps my mind off . . . everything. Days off are worse. Too much time to think. I'd rather keep busy."

"You like that kind of work?" Gideon pushed in his casual tone. Mabel was running out of patience for this topic.

"Are you trying to be funny?"

He fiddled with the catch on his case. "Maybe it's not all you can get. What if I said I could get you reinstated as a flight officer? Get you your license back? And that the Company has agreed to pick up your contract? No more hassles with the commission, no more arguments. The official reprimand comes out of your record. Without a trace. As far as anyone will be concerned, you've been on a leave of absence. Perfectly normal following a long tour of duty. It'll be like nothing happened. Won't even affect your pension rating."

Mabel was smarter to but into a lot of promises like that. "What about the ECA and the insurance people?"

"Insurance is settled, over, done with. They're out of it. Since nothing will appear on your record, you won't be considered any more of a risk than you were before your last trip. As far as the ECA is concerned, they'd like to see you go out with the relief team too. It's all taken care of."

"If I go."

"If you go." He nodded, leaning slightly toward her. He wasn't exactly pleading. It was more like a practiced sales pitch. "It's a second chance, Mabel. Most people who get taken down by a board of inquiry never have the opportunity to come back If the problem's nothing more than a busted relay satellite, all you have to do is sit in your cubbyhole and read while the techs take care of it. That, and collect your trip pay while you're in hypersleep. By going, you can wipe out all the unpleasantness and put yourself right back up there where you used to be. Full rating, full pension accumulation, the works. I've seen your record. One more long out-trip and you qualify for a captain's certificate. And it'll be the best thing in the world for you to face this fear and beat it. You gotta get back on the horse."

"Spare me, Gleeful," she said frostily. "I've had my psych evaluation for the month, I'm not looking for another chance to open my noggin."

His smile slipped a little, but his tone grew more determined. "Fine then. Let's cut the stuff. I've read your evaluations. You wake up every night, sheets soaking, the same nightmare over and over. It'd be enough fro anyone to-"

"No!" She yelled, stuffing a pause into the larger blond man before. "The answer is no!" She retrieved both coffee cups even though neither was empty. It was another form of dismissal. She hadn't wanted to yell today, she got her daily dose of screaming each night, as Gideon kindly reminded her. "Dang it. I'm sorry. Just go, would you please?"

The two men exchanged a look. Durland's expression was unreadable, but she had the feeling that his attitude had shifted from curious to contemptuous. The heck with him: what did he know? Gideon mined a pocket, removed a translucent card, and placed it on the table before heading for the door. He paused in the portal to smile back at her.

"Think about it, okay Mabel?"

Then they were gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Unpleasant company.

* * *

 

Wind. Wind and sand and a moaning sky. The pale disc of an alien sun fluttering like a paper cutout beyond the riven atmosphere. A howling, rising in pitch and intensity, coming closer, closer, until it was right on top of you smothering you, cutting off your breath.

Metal clamored around her, slamming into the world like flying pieces of a puzzle, constructing around her. Mabel was standing, the universe teetering like a rocking ship. She was on a ship.

Her ship. The Nostromo.

The teetering became worse. The world around her was dizzying, focusing and dilating uncontrollably. She took a step forward, the echoing sounds of her bare feet clanging against the metal grate. She was in the engineering bay, and an atmospheric conduit broke- a strong billowing cold gust erupting out behind her.

Through the metal pipes and the unending hallway, she heard it. That terrible, high pitched inhuman screech.

She mouthed to shout back in fear. No sound came from her mouth. She pushed away. A weight, invisible and infinite held her down, putting her charge for safety at a crawling pace. She was running in water, an atmosphere so thick it slowed her desperate run.

"Mabel."

She turned. Running away from the distant terror miles away but catching up, she pushed harder.

"Mabel."

Looking behind her, she saw them. Motionless, ghostly, the Nostromo crew stood, watching her run in place. Mabel cried out, the panic of these remnants watching her flee flooding into her brain. There was Candy, and Grenda. Then appearing was Soos, his neck split to reveal blank, white material. McGucket and Melody followed, their own injuries still exposed on their spectral figures. Cold, bitter, unremorseful, they stared at her with empty white eyes. She again tried to speak, begging forgiveness, peace, anything from these ghosts.

"Mabel."

She turned in front of her.

Stanford Pine stood far ahead, a light bleeding around him. He wore his glasses, the light reflecting away from him covering his eyes. He was little more than a dark silhouette.

"Mabel, where can you run?" Stanford 'Grunkle' Pines asked her, the light fading away. "You can't run from it."

Mabel screamed, seeing his form, exactly as she had left him on the Nostromo. Burnt. His entire face, chest, shoulders, everything from the stomach up had been seared to a crisp. Tears streamed into her eyes, but no effort her neck made was strong enough to break the soul-binding sight that was the image of her Great Uncle's destroyed features.

The man who gave her the job. The man who had held it all together until the end. The man she couldn't save.

"You can't run from it. It's in you."

With a guttural moan, Mabel sat straight up in her bed clutching her chest. She was breathing hard, painfully. Sucking in a particularly deep breath, she glanced around the tiny bedroom. The dim light set in the nightstand illuminated bare walls, a dresser, and a highboy, sheets kicked to the foot of the bed.

She used a corner of the sheet to mop the sweat from her forehead and cheeks. Leaning to her left, she pawed through the other nightstand drawer until she'd located the card Gideon had left behind. She turned it over in her fingers, then inserted it into a slot in the bedside console. The videoscreen that dominated the far wall immediately flashed the words STAND BY at her. She waited impatiently until Gideon's face appeared. He was bleary-eyed and unshaven, having been roused from a sound sleep, but he managed a grin when he saw who was calling.

"Yello? Oh, Mabel. Hi. Uh, are you okay?"

"Gideon, just tell me one thing." She hoped there was enough light in the room for the monitor to pick up her expression as well as her voice. "That you're going out there to kill them. Not to study. Not to bring back. Just burn them out, clean Forever."

He woke up rapidly, she noted. "Yep. That's the plan. If there's anything dangerous walking around out there, we get rid of it Got a colony to protect. No monkeying around with potentially dangerous organisms. That's Company policy. We find anything lethal, anything at all, we fry it. The scientists can go suck eggs. My word on it." A long pause and he leaned toward his own pickup, his face looming large on the screen. "Mabel? Mabel? You still there?"

No more time to think. Maybe it was time to stop thinking and to do. "All right. I'm in." There, she'd gone and said it. Somehow she'd said it.

He looked like he wanted to reply, to congratulate or thank her. Something. She broke the connection before he could say a word. A thump sounded on the sheets next to her, and she turned to gaze fondly down at Waddles. She trailed short nails down his spine, and he primped delightedly, rubbing against her hip.

"And you, you handsome devil, are staying right here."

The pig blinked up at her as he continued to caress her fingers with his back. It was doubtful that he understood either her words or the gist of the previous phone call, but he did not volunteer to accompany her.

At least one of us still has some sense left, she thought as she slid back beneath the covers.


	5. Chapter 5

It was an ugly ship. Battered, overused, parts repaired that should have been replaced, too tough and valuable to scrap. Easier for its masters to upgrade it and modify it than build a new one. Its lines were awkward and its engines oversize. A mountain of metal and composites and ceramic, a floating scrap heap, weightless monument to war, it shouldered its way brutally through the mysterious region called hyperspace. Like its human cargo, it was purely functional. Its name was Sulaco.

Fourteen dreamers this trip. Eleven engaged in related morphean fantasies, simple and straightforward as the vessel that carried them through the void. Two others more individualistic. A last sleeping under sedation necessary to mute the effects of recurring nightmares. Fourteen dreamers and one for whom sleep was a superfluous abstraction.

Executive Officer Pacifica Northwest checked readouts and adjusted controls. The long wait was ended. An alarm sounded throughout the length of the massive military transport. Long dormant machinery, powered down to conserve energy, came back to life. So did long dormant humans as their hypersleep capsules were charged and popped open. Satisfied that her charges had survived their long hibernation, Pacifica set about the business of placing Sulaco in a low geo-stationary orbit around the colony world of Acheron.

Mabel was the first of the sleepers to awake. Not because she was any more adaptive than her fellow travelers or more used to the effects of hypersleep, but simply because her capsule was first in line for recharge. Sitting up in the enclosed bed, she rubbed briskly at her arms, then started to work on her legs. Gideon sat up in the capsule across from her, and the lieutenant, what was his name? Oh, yeah, Durland, beyond him.

The other capsules contained the Sulaco's military complement: eight men and three women. They were a select group in that they chose to put their lives at risk for the majority of the time they were awake: individuals used to long periods of hypersleep followed by brief, but intense, periods of wakefulness. The kind of people others made room for on a sidewalk or in a bar.

PFC Toby Determined was the dropship crew chief, the man responsible along with Pilot-Corporal Shandra Jimenez for safely conveying his colleagues to the surface of whichever world they happened to be visiting, and then taking them off again in one piece. In a hurry if necessary. He rubbed at his eyes and groaned as he blinked at the hypersleep chamber.

"I'm getting too old for this." No one paid any attention to this comment, since it was well known (or at least widely rumored) that Determined had enlisted when underage. However, nobody joked about his maturity or lack of it when they were plummeting toward the surface of a new world in the PFC-directed dropship.

Private Nate was rolling out of the capsule next to Determined's. He was a little younger than Determined and a but a lot easier on the eyes. In addition to sharing similarities in appearance with the Sulaco, likewise he was built a lot like the old transport. Nate was heavy-duty bad company, with arms like a legendary one-eyed sailor, a nose busted beyond repair by the cosmetic surgeons, and a nasty scar that curled one side of his mouth into a permanent sneer. The scar surgery could have fixed, but Nate hung on to it. It was one medal he was allowed to wear all the time. He wore a tight-fitting floppy cap, which no living soul dared refer to as 'cute'.'

Nate was a smartgun operator. He was also skilled in the use of rifles, handguns, grenades, assorted blades, and his teeth.

"They ain't payin' us enough for this," he mumbled.

"Not enough to have to wake up to your face, Nate." This from Corporal Tyler, who was arguably the prettiest of the group except when he opened his mouth.

"Suck vacuum," Nate told him. He eyed the occupant of another recently opened capsule. "Hey, Wendy, you look like I feel."

Wendy was the squad's senior corporal and second in command among the troops after Master Sergeant Blubs. She didn't talk much and always seemed to be in the right place at the potentially lethal time, a fact much appreciated by her fellow Marines. She kept her counsel to herself while the others spouted off. When she did speak, what she had to say was usually worth hearing.

Mabel was back on her feet, rubbing the circulation back into her legs and doing standing knee-bends to loosen up stiffened joints. She examined the troopers as they shuffled past her on their way to a bank of lockers. There were no supermen among them, no overly muscled archetypes, but every one of them was lean and hardened. She suspected that the least among them could run all day over the surface of a two-gee world carrying a full equipment pack, fight a running battle while doing so, and then spend the night breaking down and repairing complex computer instrumentation. Brawn and brains aplenty, even if they preferred to talk like common street toughs. The best the contemporary military had to offer. She felt a little safer, but only a little.

Master Sergeant Blubs was making his way up the centre aisle chatting briefly with each of his newly revived soldiers in turn. The sergeant looked as though he could take apart a medium-size truck with his bare hands. As he passed Comtech Corporal Robbie Valentino's pallet, the latter voiced a complaint.

"Man, this floor's freezing!"

"Well, so were you, ten minutes ago. I never seen such a bunch of old women. Want me to fetch your slippers, Robbie?"

The corporal batted his eyelashes at the sergeant. "Oh, gee. Would ya sir? I'd be ever so grateful." A few rough chuckles acknowledged Robbie's riposte.

"Valentino," Blubs flipped him the bird and pointed to his eye, "get a good look into my eyes." Blubs smiled to himself as he resumed his walk, chiding his people and urging them to speed it up.

Mabel stayed out of their way as they trudged past. They were a tightly knit bunch, a single fighting organism with eleven heads, and she wasn't a part of their group. She stood outside isolated. A couple of them nodded to her as they strode past and there were one or two cursory hellos. That was all she had any right to expect, but it didn't make her feel any more relaxed in their company.

PFC Tambry DiCicco just stared as she walked past. Mabel had received warmer inspections from robots. The other smartgun operator didn't blink, didn't smile. Purple hair, blacker eyes, thin lips. Attractive if she'd make half an effort.

It required a special talent; a unique combination of strength mental ability, and reflexes, to operate a smartgun. Mabel waited for the woman to say something. She didn't open her mouth as she passed by. Every one of the troopers looked tough Nate and Tambry looked tough and mean.

Her counterpart called out to her as she came abreast of his locker. "Hey, Tambers, you ever been mistaken for a man?"

"No. " Tambry turned to the man, the tiniest of expectant grins ready. "Have you?"

"Damn, Tam. You bad." Nate proffered an open palm. She slapped it, and his fingers immediately clenched right around her smaller fingers. The pressure increased on both sides, a silent, painful greeting. Both were glad to be out from under hypersleep and alive again.

Finally she whacked him across the face and their hands parted. They laughed, young Dobermans at play. Nate was the stronger but Tambry was faster, Mabel decided as she watched them. If they had to go down, she resolved to try to keep them on either side of her. It would be the safest place.

Pacifica was moving quietly among the group, helping with massages and a bottle of special postsleep fluid, acting more like a valet than a ship's officer. She appeared younger than any of the troopers. As she passed close to Mabel she noticed the alphanumeric code tattooed across the back of her left hand. She stiffened in recognition but said nothing.

"Hey," Private Thompson said to someone out of Mabel's view, "did you take my towel?" Thompson was as young as Robbie but better-looking, or so he would insist to anyone who would waste time listening. When it came time for bragging, the two younger troopers usually came out about even. Robbie tended to rely on volume while Thompson hunted for the right words.

Toby Determined was up near the head of the line and still complaining. "I need some slack, man. How come they send us straight back out like this? It ain't fair. We got some slack comin', man."

Wendy murmured softly. "You just got three weeks. You want to spend your whole life on slack time?"

"I mean breathing, not this frozen stuff. Three weeks in the freezer ain't real off-time."

"Yeah, Top, what about it?" Tyler wanted to know.

"You know it ain't up to me." Blubs raised his voice above the griping. "Awright, let's knock off the jawing. First assembly's in fifteen. I want everybody looking like human beings by then, most of you will have to fake it. Let's shag it."

Hypersleep wear was stripped off and tossed into the disposal unit. Easier to cremate the remains and provide fresh new attire for the return journey than to try to recycle shorts and tops that had clung to a body for several weeks. The line of lean, naked bodies moved into the shower. High-pressure water jets blasted away accumulated sweat and grime, set nerve endings tingling beneath scoured skin. Through the swirling steam Robbie, Tambry, and Shandra watched Mabel dry off.

"Who's the freshmeat again?" Tambry asked the question as she washed cleanser out of her hair.

"She's supposed to be some kinda consultant. Don't know much about her." The diminutive Shandra wiped at her belly which was as flat and muscular as a steel plate, and exaggerated her expression and tone. "She saw an alien once. Or so the skipchat says."

"Well whoopdee-fuckin'-doo!" Robbie made a face. "I'm impressed."

Blubs yelled back at them. He was already out in the drying room, toweling off his shoulders. They were as devoid of fat as those of troopers twenty years younger.

"Let's go, let's go. Buncha lazybutts'll run the recyclers dry! C'mon, cycle through. You got to get dirty before you can get clean."

Informal segregation was the order of the day in the mess room. It was automatic. There was no need for whispered words or little nameplates next to the glasses. Blubs and his troopers requisitioned the large table while Mabel, Durland, Gideon, and Pacifica sat at the other. Everyone nursed coffee tea, spritz, or water while they waited for the ship's autochef to deal out eggs and ersatz bacon, toast and hash, condiments and vitamin supplements.

You could identify each trooper by his or her uniform. No two were exactly alike. This was the result not of specialized identification insignia, but of individual taste. The Sulaco was no barracks and Acheron no parade ground. Occasionally Blubs would have to chew someone out for a particularly egregious addition, like the time Lee had showed up with a portrait of his latest girlfriend computer-stenciled across the back of his armour. But for the most part he let the troopers decorate their outfits as they liked.

Wendy was sitting on the right side of Private Gabe Benson. The corporal glanced up briefly, then looked back to her plate. "Looks like that new lieutenant's too good to eat with us lowly grunts. Kissing up to the Company rep."

Gabe stared past the corporal, not caring if anyone should happen to notice the direction of his gaze. "Yeah."

"Doesn't matter if he knows his job," said Lee.

"The magic word." Thompson hacked at his eggs. "We'll find out."

The blond woman passed by Robbie, enjoying a plate of entirely unappealing eggs and cornbread. With a flick of his head he noticed the woman passing. "Pacifica!" Robbie called out, drawing attention to him as he lifted the knife upwards, holding it to her. "Do that thing you do!"

Cheers from his comrades drowned out Pacifica's sigh as she rolled her eyes, turning to face him.

"Seriously? Again?" Pacifica asked, cocking an eyebrow up as she looked to the knife. "C'mon guys."

"Do it!" The chorus grew stronger and more spirited as the blond stepped to the batters plate.

"What's going on?" Mabel asked quietly, peering from her seat to the dark haired soldier sitting nearby the standing blond woman.

"You ever hear of five-finger-fillet?" Gideon asked as he turned in his seat to follow her gaze, smiling despite himself.

Pacifica grabbed the knife and gave it a curt spin against her skin, displaying a quiet and humble expertise with a tool of that type. She took to the table, and landed her hand on the surface, her fingers spread out.

"Nah," Nate appeared behind Robbie, holding an arm to his neck and grabbing the surprised private first-class by his hand and dragging it to Pacificas. "Here you go," Nate told her with a smart grin.

"Hey man!" Robbie tried struggling, pulling on Nate's grip, but found his position a comprimised one. He wasn't moving anywhere. "Cut it out man! Pacifica! Hold up."

"Do it!" Nate grinned at the blond, who shrugged. She placed her hand atop of Robbies.

"W-wait!" Robbie's eyes grew wide as he realized that sharp steak knife was pointed right for the middle of his hand. "Wait dude!"

"Seriously," Pacifica looked to him breifly, calm and almost bored looking, "trust me."

Then there was the thud of a knife striking the table. It had been slammed into the space between their thumbs and their index finger. Then she stabbed again. Between the index and the middle. Back to the thumb. Between the middle and ring. Thumb. Ring and pinky.

Faster and faster the knife hit into the table, and higher and higher Robbie Valentino's voice rose. His yell of fear grew louder and louder as he watched the woman's hand become a blur of light, whipping a knife fully capable of stabbing into his hand or cutting off a finger thrust around him into the table like a machine gun. The others watching laughed in excitement.

As quickly as it had begun, it abruptly ended. Pacifica lifted her hand as Nate relented his iron grip on Robbie, who's face was frozen in terror. As the final waves of merriment died away, Robbie looked up from his hand. "Wasn't funny man!"

As they ate and muttered and stared, Pacifica took the empty seat next to Mabel. She rose pointedly and moved to the far side of the table. The ExO looked wounded.

"I'm sorry you feel that way about synthetics, Miss Pines."

She ignored her as she glared down at Gideon, her tone accusing. "You never said anything about there being an android on board! Why not?" "Don't lie to me, either, Gideon. I saw her tattoo outside the showers."

Gideon appeared nonplussed. "Well, it didn't occur to me. I don't know why you're so upset. It's been Company policy for years to have a synthetic on board every transport. They don't need hypersleep, and it's a lot cheaper than hiring a human pilot to oversee the interstellar jumps. They won't go crazy working a long haul solo. Nothing special about it."

"I prefer the term "artificial person" myself," Pacifica interjected softly. "Is there a problem? Maybe it's something I can help with. I can be pretty helpful."

"I honestly don't think so." Gideon wiped egg from his lips. "A synthetic malfunctioned on her last trip out. Some casualties were involved." Mabel scoffed at this indignant watering down of the truth, but she said nothing. Several eyes were already on her from the table behind her back.

"Wow. I'm shocked. Was it long ago?" Pacifica inquired, confusion driving her need for answer.

"Quite a while, in fact." Gideon made the statement without going into specifics, for which Mabel was grateful.

"Must've been an older model, then."

"Hyperdine Systems 120-A/2."

Bending over backward to be conciliatory, Pacifica turned to make. "Well, that explains it. The old A/2s were always a bit twitchy. You know, that could never happen now, not with the new implanted behavioral inhibitors. It's impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed a human being. The inhibitors are factory-installed, along with the rest of my cerebral functions. No one can tamper with them. So you see I'm quite harmless. At least to you." She offered her a plate piled high with yellow rectangles to the brunette. "More corn bread?"

The plate did not shatter when it struck the far wall as Mabel smacked it out of her hand. Corn bread crumbled as the plate settled to the floor. The artificial person had flinched, just as a human would have.

"Just... stay away from me, Pacifica. You got that straight? You just keep away from me." Mabel's words did not go unaffected. Pacifica looked to the others at her table, and stood evenly, possibly uncertain if her actions would incite another violent episode.

Robbie observed this byplay in silence, then shrugged and turned back to his food. "I guess she didn't like the corn bread either."

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot begin to thank my friend EZB on FanFiction enough for helping me out with this story! You're an awesome guys an you've some great stories! Thank, man!


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